Lost a good friend this afternoon. Highly experienced Jumper who opened lower than he usually did and had a turning line-over type malfunction.

Rode it til about 400 ft for some reason then chopped it. Reserve didn't have time to inflate and reports from eye witnesses said it was a slow turning "bow tie" type malfunction. He jumped a fairly large canopy (I think a 210 or 220). Blue Skies Sandy

A most recent report from a witness I spoke with stated he may have had trouble finding the handle given his baggy jumpsuit and new rig.

Further reported is the reserve did actually inflate at time of impact and he could have used a few extra feet of sky.

Been a while since I lost someone I know to our sport. Lots in the old days but that's when parachutes didn't open and being older I don't know that many swoopers who seem to buy it with more regularity.

I share with others how hard it is to make these reports of those we know

Such a loss. I believe he had an RSL.... He was cool under pressure. I was with him on his first chop and remember him saying..."No big deal..just followed my EP's". Can't believe he did not pull this one out. He seldom packed his own rig... his main was relatively new... a 150 Apache. He told me a few times that it could get radical if he got into a spin.

He was a very close friend of mine, and I was there and watched the entire thing unfold right in front of me. In fact, I missed being on the load by about 5 minutes.

He did indeed have a classic "bow tie" line over malfunction after opening lower than he usually does (I would estimate somewhere between 2000-2500' or so. He ended up spinning rather quickly under the malfunction and for some reason or another, didn't cut away until approximately 300', at which point, his reserve came out but did not inflate entirely before he hit the ground.

His main was an Apache 150, but I do not know what his reserve size was. It was in a Mirage G4 container, so no Skyhook - just a standard RSL.

Thanks for the update Steve! Don't understand why he took so long to react either. Wasn't like him at all. I hope we find some answers to help understand and learn from this. However, violent spins are difficult to handle in short order.

This is true, however, his RSL was found disconnected. So maybe he was thinking that because he was under a spinning malfunction that he needed to disconnect his RSL and that could explain the hesitation going to his reserve.

At this point, all we're left with is unanswered questions, and that's definitely the hardest part of all of it.

was he possibly knocked out? To make the decision to cutaway that low no matter if you have a skyhook or not would not be a good decision. Do you think he came to and just reacted? Surely just going straight to reserve at that altitude would have been a better bet. Sorry for your loss.

This is true, however, his RSL was found disconnected. So maybe he was thinking that because he was under a spinning malfunction that he needed to disconnect his RSL and that could explain the hesitation going to his reserve.

At this point, all we're left with is unanswered questions, and that's definitely the hardest part of all of it.

Trying to disconnect an RSL may very well have been an issue. If you look at the attached pix of him with his rig you will see his rings and rsl a bit higher than I like them.

His first chop was around 180 jumps. He told me "it was really uneventful". He was a level headed pilot that I am sure was used to dealing with emergencies. Can't imagine he was knocked out. Like Steve said... these are questions we may never know.

If he had difficulty cutting away, perhaps the mini 3 rings contributed to that. I don't like them at all, especially for heavier jumpers.

i've chopped 5 times with mini 3rings on highly loaded canopies spinning, and never had a problem, and i'm a bigger dude. what might have been a real contributor to a hard cutaway is if he had hard housings in his risers. but if his rsl was disconnected, my guess is he took too much time disconnecting it, instead of just cutting away.